


Tickets to the Train Wreck

by ChuckleVoodoos



Series: Invisible Gorilla Testing [2]
Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: F/M, Love Triangles, M/M, Oblivious Bruce, POV Betty Ross, POV Outsider
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-06
Updated: 2013-02-06
Packaged: 2017-11-28 10:49:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/673559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChuckleVoodoos/pseuds/ChuckleVoodoos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She knows where this is headed, like watching a train wreck in slow motion, and she can’t get off the train.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tickets to the Train Wreck

**Author's Note:**

> So, I do love Betty Ross. Seriously. She's smart, cool, and kickass. Unfortunately, Stanner is also my OTP. Which makes things complicated. I tried to show her side as well as I could while still staying true to my pairing.

He’s talking about Tony Stark again.

 

Betty sips her cola and regards her boyfriend as he chatters about his day. There was a time when Betty would have been overjoyed to see Bruce coming out of his shell this way, no matter what the cause. She just had always assumed, in her heart of hearts, that the cause would be her.

 

He’s always been so quiet and sad, ever since she saw him across the playground thirteen years ago, playing in the sandbox. There was an unspoken agreement among the kindergartners that the sandbox was a baby’s toy, and that the swings and the kickball were much more suitable pursuits. Bruce hadn’t looked like a child though, even then; his eyes were darker than the bruise blooming on his cheek. When Betty looked at him, alone in the sandbox and alone in the world, and she felt her heart squeeze like it did when she saw her mother cry. She sat right down next to him in that sandbox, sand ruining her new and expensive velvet dress, and told him that she was going to marry him one day so that he wouldn’t be sad.

 

They’ve been engaged ever since, to Betty’s mind, although Bruce never technically said yes. In fact he’d looked quite terrified and tried to literally stick his head in the sand because he’d heard the expression before. He has since mellowed somewhat.

 

He asked her out officially in third grade, on a little paper valentine card that was the only homemade one in the class, and also the only one that was grammatically correct. Betty, of course, was smitten. She said yes, no sandbox required.

 

It’s been rocky, sometimes. Bruce is a wonderful person, but he’s so timid, and awkward, and so very much _better_ than most people that he finds it hard to fit in. When they were in middle school, he was one of the most popular bully targets. There was little Betty could do; having a pretty, willowy girl as your protector did more harm than good sometimes. Bruce always had so many bruises though, and Betty knows even now that not all of them were from school. The thought makes her sick.

 

“Betty?” Bruce asks her. Both the waiter and Bruce are staring at her expectantly and on Bruce’s end a little worriedly. “Are you ready to order?”

 

“O-Oh, yes, just the naan pizza, please.” The waiter nods and turns to Bruce.

 

“I think I’ll have the falafel. Tony says I’d like it.”

 

Of course, then came Tony Stark.

 

Betty knows that she’s smart. Just as Betty objectively knows that she’s smart, she realizes that Bruce is smarter than her. Much smarter. He’s so humble and kind about it though, and so very awkward, that the difference has never really mattered.

 

She already knows that she’s going to study biology next year, and she knows that she’s going to be brilliant at it. She can talk circles around some of her teachers, and most of her classmates. She’s _not_ dumb.

 

But when she’s around Tony Stark, she starts to feel like she is.

* * *

 

She meets Tony before Bruce does, the first day of high school. He seems to have made it his mission to hit on the entire female population of the school before the end of first period, and Betty is one of the highlighted items on his list. She’s headed out of English, and Tony is a nonstop flirt the whole time she’s walking down the hallway. Betty finds it amusing rather than threatening, because there’s no way she’d pick Tony over Bruce and while she does lo—like Bruce a lot, it’s sort of _nice_ to be flirted with, especially by someone with Tony’s level of skill. It’s innocent, nothing coming from it, and if she doesn’t plan to tell Bruce, well that’s just because she doesn’t want to worry him unnecessarily.

 

“I think I figured out the calibration issue, but I’d need heavy metal in order to get the spin right—Oh. Um. H-Hello.”

 

There is an abrupt cease to the stream of suggestive commentary behind Betty. She turns, and sees something quite extraordinary.

 

Tony Stark is speechless.

 

He’s just standing there, leaning against the locker in a relic of his earlier flirting, and staring. Bruce flushes and tugs a little on his sweater while biting his lip, a nervous tic that Betty has always found rather attractive.

 

Tony licks his lips.

 

“Hi, I’m Tony, and we are going to have _lots_ of fun together.”

 

And instead of sticking his head in the sand, Bruce smiles shyly and takes Tony’s hand.

* * *

 The worst part is, it’s not all in Betty’s head. She likes to think she’s not a jealous person, but sometimes she wishes that she were so that this would all be in her imagination and it would go away.

 

She keeps score, sometimes. She shouldn’t, but she does.

 

Bruce hates touch, but he leans into Tony when the boy loops an arm around his shoulder and tugs him close. It took him four years to hold Betty’s hand without flinching.

 

She’ll find them huddled in the library, whispering to each other close enough to steal each other’s breath. Six years for kissing.

 

Tony bends and says something into Bruce’s ear, close enough that his lips graze the shell, and Bruce gives him that smile that is so bright and beautiful and open that it makes your whole heart just stop for a moment.

 

Thirteen years and counting.

 

It gets worse than that. She sees the way that Tony looks at Bruce when he doesn’t think anyone’s watching. Although sometimes she thinks he _does_ know she’s watching, and he’s telling her in his own way that ‘See, I lo--care about him just as much as you do, and one day he’ll have to choose’.

 

She wishes she were sure that he’d pick her.

 

“Betty?”

 

“Hmm?” She asks, snapping back into the present. What is she doing, mulling on her insecurities when she should be enjoying her anniversary dinner with her boyfriend? He’s here with her, not Tony.

 

She smiles apologetically at him.

 

“Sorry, I think I might be coming down with something. Headache.” Bruce looks quite concerned and guilty, as though her poor health is entirely his fault. It’s not; it’s Betty’s own and that damned Tony Stark’s.

 

“Why didn’t you say? We could have postponed.” And then he’d be at Tony’s house right now, alone and unsupervised. There’s no question about that. “I’ll see if I can get you some ice, okay?”

 

Betty nods and watches him hurry over to their waiter, not a hint of nerves in his steps as he is led out of sight into the kitchen. Tony did that for Bruce, not Betty. The thought rankles, as happy as she is for her boyfriend’s newfound serenity. As long as she’s known Bruce, and as long as they’ve been together, she hasn’t done as much for him in those thirteen years as Tony has done in less than four.

 

And one day Bruce _will_ have to choose; Tony’s smile tells her that. Betty’s not the type to destroy a friendship over pettiness; she knows that she will still want to be in Bruce’s life, no matter what he decides. She thinks Tony feels the same. Bruce isn’t the one that is going to get hurt here for once, and she supposed she has that to be grateful for.

 

Bruce’s phone lights up on the table—he’s still in the kitchen procuring ice for her imaginary headache. Betty looks at the ID on the screen: _Tony_ <3.

 

 She knows that Tony gave Bruce the phone ( _made_ him the phone personally with his own two hands, and isn’t that a million times worse) and programmed his own number in, so the heart shouldn’t mean anything. Bruce didn’t do it--thinks it’s funny, even. It shouldn’t mean anything.

 

Betty’s contact just says _Betty Ross._ No heart, nothing. Tony programmed that one too.

 

She watches the cheerfully lighted phone for a moment. He knows that this is their anniversary dinner. He knows, and he’s still calling. He thinks that Bruce will answer.

 

The worst part is, Bruce probably would.

 

She snatches it off the table.

 

“What, Tony?” She says, perhaps a little more sharply than she would like. There is a brief silence on the other end.

 

“Either your voice finally cracked in the wrong direction, or else you aren’t Bruce.” When Betty stonily says nothing to this, Tony continues, “Hi, Betty. How’s the dinner?”

 

“Oh, so you _do_ remember that Bruce and I are celebrating our _anniversary.”_

_“_ Hard to forget.” He tells her, and she hopes that note in his voice is wry humor rather than something darker. “Ten years, right?”

 

“Thirteen.” She replies primly. Tony hums curiously on the other line.

 

“Huh, Bruce said ten. Ah well, you know how he is with numbers.” A genius that knows pi to a thousand places. Betty grits her teeth.

 

“Why are you calling, Tony?” She asks slowly.

 

“I just wanted to make sure Bruce is bringing brownies when he comes over later.” Tony says simply, as though asking your friend to bring heartfelt baked goods over on a night he’s supposed to be spending with his girlfriend is completely normal. He really has no shame.

 

“We might be going back to my place after.” She shouldn’t say it, hasn’t even talked about it with Bruce yet. She’s just so angry and desperate to prove that Bruce still likes her best. Tony brings out the worst in her the same way he brings out the best in Bruce.

 

 Tony can smell blood in the water.

 

“Uh-huh. After you’ve hidden all your father’s firearms, I hope.” General Ross’s distaste for Bruce has always been a sore point for Betty, but no one exploits it quite like Tony does. “He said he’d help me finish up the exoskeleton tonight. Which, unless Bruce has finally perfected that time machine idea we were kicking around, might interfere with those plans over at ‘your place’.” There is definitely something darker in his voice now.

 

Betty doesn’t even ask. She knows all she needs to from the fact that Bruce has already made plans with Tony on their anniversary. Bruce doesn’t realize, she thinks, the connotations of this. He’s been giving her little presents all day, and he’s paying for their dinner even though she knows money is tight. He’s attentive and sweet and smart and kind and handsome (although he doesn’t know it) as always, everything that Betty Ross has ever looked for in a boyfriend.

 

He’s not the least bit guilty, and unlike Stark he has morals and a horrible poker face. He really doesn’t know what’s happening here, this bizarre crippled love triangle with him as its focal point. Not yet, at least. But he is smart, too smart. He’ll figure it out, and then…

 

Thirteen years, Elizabeth Ross has been planning to marry Robert Bruce Banner. Thirteen _years._

 

“Tony. Stop it.”

 

“Stop what?” There isn’t an iota of confusion behind his indolent question. He just wants her to say it. Admit this thing that they’ve both been aware of for the past four years, ever since that day that Tony looked at Bruce and licked his goddamn lips.

 

Betty isn’t sure that she can win, but there is no way in hell that she’s going down without a fight.

 

“Stop trying to steal my boyfriend.” She’s never actually called him on it before. There are exchanged glances over Bruce’s head, subtle little snubs, smiles that are too wide when they speak about the other, but she’s never actually said the words.

 

For a moment there is silence. She hopes, with a sick little lurch, that maybe she’s reading this wrong. Maybe there’s nothing there at all, except a friendship that’s stronger than most. Maybe she’s paranoid. Maybe she can… can…

 

“I don’t have to try.”

 

The dial tone sounds like a heartbeat flat lining.

 

Betty is smart, smarter than most people. She knows where this is headed, like watching a train wreck in slow motion, and she can’t get off the train.

 

She sees the way that Tony looks at Bruce when he doesn’t think anyone’s watching.

 

And she’s seen Bruce looking back.

 

 


End file.
